Wicked Young Writers

11th July 2014 – News

Three boys at St. Martin’s School in Northwood received some very exciting news: they had been selected as finalists in the Wicked Young Writers’ Competition. These are: Adam Amrani in Year 6, Aditya Narayan in Year 5 and Oscar Williams in Pre-Prep.

The “prestigious Wicked Young Writers’ Award” (The Times) was established by the long-running musical Wicked in order to link the important messages of the production with a competition that would inspire young people to use their writing to look at life a little differently.

The Award recognises excellence in writing, encourages creativity, and helps develop writing talent in young people between 5-25 years old from all backgrounds and areas of the UK & Ireland.

The shortlist of 100 entrants had been invited to a very special prize event at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and each one received a published copy of their entry as part of the annual Wicked Young Writers’ Award Anthology.

Individuals from each age category were announced and received a certificate signed by Michael Morpurgo and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, plus a magical experience to see Wicked in performance with their friends or family.

Adam Amrani in Year 6 said, “I was delighted to win! My story was called Survival Beyond Belief, about a fennel fox finding food.”

Aditya Narayan in Year 5 decided, “I thought it would be a good idea to set the story in a different country. I came up with the crazy thought of making a boy go into a forbidden area and thought it would be a great time to include a time machine. I used a flap to enter the past and a key to enter the future, which I renamed as The Robotic Ages. It ended with relief as in the distant future robots would do our homework for us.

“When I heard the news about being shortlisted, I had a gleaming feeling in my heart and I knew that I had achieved something big.”

Wicked Young Writers 2014
The story –

My story is all about a young boy named Oliver from Peru who discovers a time machine. He uses the machine to travel 100 years back in time and finds that humans have had it difficult then. He also travels into the future to the year 2115 and interacts with robots. He finds himself experiencing an easy life there, sees an IPhone 75G and realises how machines have become an integral part of human life. The story concludes with him mischievously contemplating that someday robots could do his homework!

The award function –
We arrived early at the Apollo Victoria theatre and were greeted by a man with a microphone and his cameraman who interviewed me asking about my story and what it felt like to be a finalist. It was a great experience inside the hall where I got to see performances from the cast of Wicked. Michael Morpurgo presented the awards to the winners. At the end we took some group photographs. The highlight for me was to see my story published in the Anthology and the story become part of a book!

My experience with Michael Morpurgo –
Michael Morpurgo came up on stage and spoke on how to inspire young writers. He also read a chapter out of his latest book “Listen to the Moon”. He then presented the awards to the winners of each age category and shook their hand. At the end all finalists got on the stage and took pictures with Michael Morpurgo, the Wicked cast and singers. We then took it in turns to talk to Mr Morpurgo which was probably once-in-a-lifetime chance and a really good experience.

I thank my teachers, Mr Hand and Ms Flynn, who encouraged me to write this story, my school, St Martin’s and my parents who inspired me to put my best effort into writing this story.